Tourism is one of the world's biggest industries, and localities that host tourist destinations rely on tourism to provide revenue and employment. Such localities typically encourage and bolster tourism through advertisements and promotions. As most tourist traffic comes from foreign visitors (e.g., visitors who are residents of another country or residents of another state), advertisements and promotions targeting foreign visitors are challenging due to the potentially large number of target countries and states.
To target their advertising in an optimal manner, tourism agencies and associated travel bureaus rely on federal government statistics to determine, by percentage or otherwise, which countries or states the foreign visitors are coming from. Currently available federal statistics are not accurate because they are based on interviews, typically done at an airport, of a limited number of visitors. For example, a government report for the locality of Florida estimates foreign visitors from foreign countries at 4.1 million based on based on 3,000 interviews. A more accurate count is probably close to 5.6 million visitors.
Furthermore, mere knowledge of the number of foreign visitors is often not sufficient without further information as to their spending habits.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide accurate and detailed spending information by foreign visitors within a locality in a rapid and convenient manner to gain a better understanding of how to efficiently apply advertisement and promotional resources for the locality.